Of Songs, Death, and Alcohol
by Jackson12
Summary: All she did was sing a song. One goddamned song. A day, an assault on a dam, and footage of a massacre left and Katniss is left to ponder about her part in this war and thinks about numbers, symbols, and death


Its a bad habit she has.

Prim suggested she start assigning numbers to everything she did so she at least got some practice for school. (Or any practice at all since she really didn't have the time between feeding a family and not starving herself)

So that's what she did and that's what she still does because hell, she needs to keep her brain occupied at all times or the weight of her sins will come bearing down at her and will turn her into Annie Cresta, without a Finnick(Peeta) of her own since said comfort greeted her with nearly smashing her windpipe.

 _She debates if she should be worried that a tiny part of her_ _ **wanted**_ _to die in that moment._

 _Maybe she does, but going to the shrink might take thirty minutes to an hour and she could be hunting, or filming, or planning an attack or coordinating a defence, or traveling somewhere else to help in an attack or aid a defence or really just masturbating because she can't remember the last fucking time she even had time for it. She can't waste those one-thousand eight-hundred to three-thousand six-hundred seconds talking about her feelings. She needs to be a sister, and a soldier, and symbol, and a hero all at the same time so just being her doesn't really fit the schedule_

So here she is, running numbers in her drunken mind because that's all she can do. Oh, and wonder about symbols.

Because really, the Mockingjay?

Sure it's a symbol of the last rebellion, but doesn't anyone remember that rebellion got bombed to hell and it's authors got hanged? Doesn't anyone bother to look at what used to be District 13 and think _huh, maybe we shouldn't try to emulate the last guys that tried this?_

No? Just her then?

 _Fine_

She supposes it's fitting, in a way. The Mockingjays are beautiful in their own right, and they did serve their purpose during the war when the rebels started using them, but above all, they are astounding at making things happen.

It takes one Mockingjay to make a sound and that's enough for every bird within miles to recreate it or make his/her own tune.

She sang a song.

 _a fucking song_

And next thing she knows it's the war chant sung by a small army of people that rushed the Capitol's damned dam.

She sees the footage. She manages to sit through all of it by the third attempt, having had to look away once she sees the tactics. The people involved in it.

 _fuckfuckfuck there are_ _ **children**_ _in there_

It's an accurate representation of the rebellion. No weapons, no plans, just sheer numbers thrown at the grinder in the hopes that they make it.

She doesn't notice the tears until Gale hands her a handkerchief.

 _There are 4 platforms, with 4 soldiers on them and thrice that many more on the floor above aiming down makes for over half a dozen bullets fired in the first second. Over half a dozen bullets times 4 platform. In the first second alone over half a hundred people died_

 _Men, women, and children because this war hasn't fucking cared._

The living trample over the dead, shortly thereafter becoming dead to be trampled on by the horde behind them. It's a sea of living beings ignoring literally every survival instinct in the book and running straight into oncoming fire.

Not even the monstrous amount of highly pressurized water can wash away the blood and gore on the concrete. They get in, they plant the explosives, and they get out. All of this while the Peacekeepers above keep firing.

It's over in a minute.

 _Over fifty dead per second times sixty seconds that makes an easy... three thousand deaths._

All because she sung a song.

She'd be a deranged, sobbing mess at the moment were it not for Johanna. The gruff no-bullshit ex-Victor pulled her away from the War Room and took her outside, handed her a bottle with foul-smelling liquid that she was pretty damned sure not even Haymitch would drink and sat both of them down against the remains of some building bombed to Oblivion three quarter's of a century ago.

 _She downed a quart (thirty-two ounces, nine-hundred and thirty-three milliliters, and fifty-seven cubic inches) and enjoyed the way it burned_

They haven't said a word to each other but that's fine, neither of them knows what to say in either case.

" _Hey so I heard you got tortured constantly, to excruciating degrees, because you had to kill children once-upon-a-time and that made you an enemy of the state. How'd that feel?"_

" _Oh pretty swell, thankyouverymuch, I heard your boyfriend tried to bash your brains against the floor and choke you while he was at it and that you are partly responsible for killing half of Panem by starting a civil war, how's that going?"_

Yeah, words are neither's forte and they have too much baggage to deal with. So this works, Johanna in her own little world fighting her own demons in her head and Katniss left to her own devices running numbers and symbols through her head.

It's not a hike through the woods of a no-longer-existing District 12, nor was it akin to sharing a drink with Haymitch, much less spending some time with Peeta (pre-tracker-jacker murderous mindfuck,).

But it was all she had and fuck it, if it was the best she was gonna get then so be it.

She takes a drink, she looks to the stars and leans slightly against Johanna.

If the woman nearly blows her head away with her sidearm from the sudden contact, well, she ignores that for a bit. She just needs some warmth and a comfortable space to rest her (fucked up) head for a bit

She has booze, a pretty lady to snuggle with, and some time to kill.

She could worry about blood-soaked fields and bombed out Districts later, when the images of dead women and children didn't flash in-front of her eyes every time she closed them.

(She will still dream about them, but hell, she doesn't sleep that much as it is so it's a fair trade she thinks)


End file.
